Planting whole grain?

Mashtun

Has anybody had a go. A man on a forum said a very small percentage of grains will remain viable after malting. Might have a go at some indoor propagation and see what happens. Thoughts?

Khannie

Would love to hear how you get on. Very self sufficient.

Carawaystick

Wouldn't your grains need milling/crushing for the mash?
That'd kill em for sure

Tube

Just buy some barley seed.

rubadub

Carawaystick wrote: »

Wouldn't your grains need milling/crushing for the mash?
That'd kill em for sure

I was thinking the small % were ones which bypassed the crushing somehow, and also did not sprout. As above you would just buy seed, but probably for best results needs to be a strain suited to brewing.

I would sooner put time into growing hops, or maybe fruits to make wine/cider. I expect the yield would be tiny for grains indoors. I have never heard of people growing grains to make their own bread or anything like that.

Tube

rubadub wrote: »

As above you would just buy seed, but probably for best results needs to be a strain suited to brewing.

Most seed available in Ireland will be for malting barley.

Khannie

rubadub wrote: »

I have never heard of people growing grains to make their own bread or anything like that.

It does happen, but because commercial grain growing is so ridiculously well refined (excuse the pun) these days, the cost : benefit is hard to justify.

Mashtun

Sorry for no reply folks, been busy lately. The reason i want to plant from malt is that i want to grow maris otter. you can get small bags of malted wholegrain i.e. not crushed or milled and maybe i would get enough plants to provide the seed for the following season i.e. plant in winter as winter barley

fairly out there i know but i don't see the sense in growing lower grade varieties when you can buy maris otter already malted. homegrown maris otter however, sounds decent

BTW already growing my own hops, goin for 100% homegrown

oblivious

Mashtun wrote: »

Sorry for no reply folks, been busy lately. The reason i want to plant from malt is that i want to grow maris otter.

To be honest marris otter was developed for the Norfolk climate, its dryer than ours. As said before most barley is malting type, but a lot of it will not make the grade at harvest and be used as feed. Also they are better suited for growing here

Carawaystick

Mashtun wrote: »

Sorry for no reply folks, been busy lately. The reason i want to plant from malt is that i want to grow maris otter. you can get small bags of malted wholegrain i.e. not crushed or milled and maybe i would get enough plants to provide the seed for the following season i.e. plant in winter as winter barley

fairly out there i know but i don't see the sense in growing lower grade varieties when you can buy maris otter already malted. homegrown maris otter however, sounds decent

BTW already growing my own hops, goin for 100% homegrown

As far as I know, malting is difficult, and if you do it wrong you can get badly sick.
Ergot is one of the bad things that can grow on wet barley

oblivious

Carawaystick wrote: »

As far as I know, malting is difficult, and if you do it wrong you can get badly sick.
Ergot is one of the bad things that can grow on wet barley

Its contamination of salems grain, led to the witch trials :0

tyler71

There's a great interview on the Beersmith podcast series with a woman who started off malting her own barley at home and then went pro, she explains it really well and makes it seem really easy, I'm definitely going to have a go at growing grain and malting it in the next year or two. Maybe Maris Otter doesn't grow that well here but there's no harm in finding out and it's not like there isn't tons of barley being grown in Ireland specifically for brewing so some strains are definitely going to work, it's just a matter of finding out which ones.
There's a book called 'Growing your own Hops, Malts and brewing herbs' (on Amazon) which is a reasonable read, might be of use to you. I think the whole ground to glass thing is a great idea, hope you let us know how you get on. And in fairness guys, this is the Homebrewing section here, if cost effectiveness was the important issue, we'd all be drinking Budweiser - messing around is the whole idea!

oblivious

BYO published an atlrtical a few years ago a bout growing your own https://byo.com/stories/item/722-grow-your-grains

Mashtun

Just got back from holidays to find a few sprouters. Hopefully they make it to full maturity in time for replanting in September.

Was really skeptical about the possibility of malted grains still having the potential to propogate. Wonder how many seeds will i get per plant?